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Strawberry and Elderflower Dome

This week’s patisserie creation was perhaps a little over ambitious… not only did I set myself the task of creating a new recipe from scratch (based on leftover elderflower cordial), I also used silicon hemispheres and made sablé for the first time. I’m pretty happy with the overall look and it tasted great but there were a few things I’d like to work on:

My sablé were a little bit too high and sunk in the middle… I think that’s quite a common problem from a quick Google image search. Will have to try and figure out a solution for next time.

I really struggled getting the elderflower jellies out of the mini hemisphere moulds, the warm water trick helped and I’d recommend trying that if you struggle too.

I think my mousse domes could have done with 1 more layer, perhaps a jam or a white chocolate insert to contrast against the other textures and flavours – something to consider for next time!

Anyway, here’s my recipe, feel free to use/adapt as you see fit! If you do, why not leave a comment and send me a link to a photo so I can see how yours turned out :).

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and put aside in a bowl. Put the butter in a mixing bowl and beat until soft and smooth. Next put the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk until light in colour. Add the softened butter to the eggs and sugar mix and the mix together until fully incorporated then fold in all the dry ingredients. Mix everything to form a dough and then roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper until desired thickness is reached and leave in the fridge to rest for 2-3 hours. Once chilled take your rings and use them to cut out 6 discs (keeping the ring on) and place on a lined tray. If you don’t have enough rings you’ll have to bake in stages as the rings are necessary to hold the biscuit in shape. Bake at 170 degrees for 20-25mins and then leave to cool. Store in airtight container until ready to assemble (these will keep well for about 4 days like this).

Elderflower jelly:

1 gelatine leaf

100ml water

40ml elderflower cordial

Groundnut or vegetable oil with minimal flavour

Soak the gelatine in cold water for 3-4 minutes until softened – then squeeze out excess water. Bring half the

water to the boil and take off the heat. Whisk in the gelatine until fully incorporated. Mix the remaining water

and cordial together and then add to the mixture in the pan. Lightly oil your mini silicon moulds or a square/ square plastic container then pour the jelly in until it’s 1cm in depth. Cover and chill for at least 2-3 hours until the jelly is set. To demould place the mould in a little warm water and then turn out (this should help loosen it). If you went for the container option, once set cut discs out of the jelly using a circular biscuit cutter between 3-4cm in diameter.

This recipe will make more jelly than required so have a couple glasses/or containers on hand to pop the rest of the mix in.

Strawberry puree:

350g strawberries (I’ve used frozen for this as they aren’t in season at the moment)

35ml water

35g caster sugar

7ml lemon juice

Defrost the strawberries and blitz in a processer. Bring water and sugar to boil then remove from heat and leave to cool. Poor the warm syrup and lemon juice onto the strawberry mix and then pass through a fine sieve. Leave to cool. This puree will then be split and used in the strawberry mousse and the white chocolate and strawberry glaze.

Strawberry mousse:

2.75g gelatine

125ml whipping cream

87.5g strawberry puree

20g caster sugar

Soak gelatine. Whisk cream until ribbon stage. Put 30g of puree in saucepan and add sugar heating gently until sugar dissolves. Add gelatine and stir until fully dissolved. Strain and add remaining puree. Fold into the cream and use immediately.

Put a 1.5 tbsp. of mousse into the base of each dome and use a small palette knife to spread the mousse up the sides to create a shell. Pop in the elderflower jelly and then cover with more mousse. Use the palette knife to smooth the top and then transfer to the freezer for at least 4 hours.

White chocolate and strawberry glaze

4g gelatine

53ml strawberry puree

26g sugar

53g liquid glucose

35ml double cream

53g white chocolate finely chopped

1 tsp edible gold dust

Soak the gelatine in a bowl of cold water for 3-4 minutes until it softens and then squeeze out the excess water. Put the puree, sugar and liquid glucose in a small saucepan and bring to the boil until your thermometer reaches 103 degrees. Put the finely chopped white chocolate into a bowl. Add the cream and gelatine to the mix in the saucepan and then pour this over the white chocolate and blitz with a hand-held blender. Add some gold dust and stir. Poor into a jug and leave the mix to cool down to 33 degrees (anything higher will melt the mousse!).

Demould the mousse domes and pop back into the freezer for 10 mins. Place a wire rack on a tray (with sides) and then pop the domes on the wire rack. Gently pour the glaze (which should be no more than 33/34 degrees) over the domes making sure all sides are covered evenly and then place in the fridge to set. You’ll need to pour the glaze in one fluid motion otherwise the coverage will be uneven.

If you’re making the glaze ahead of time it can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days, you’ll also likely have a bit spare from making these so you could freeze the remaining mix in an airtight container for a month. To get the glaze to the right consistency again microwave it in 10 sec bursts and stir well until it becomes a smooth. Then leave the mix to cool and use once it reaches 33/34 degrees.

Elderflower Chantilly

200ml whipping cream

20g (2¾oz) caster sugar

2bsp elderflower cordial

Whip the cream and sugar until the Chantilly can hold shape and fold in the Elderflower cordial. Place in a piping bag and use immediately.

To assemble:

Place sable biscuit on cake card/plate (you can use a bit of plain icing to hold it on the card/plate)

If like me some of your biscuits had a dip in the centre, you can fill this with some of the Elderflower Chantilly… just don’t go right to the edge of the biscuit.

Place the glazed strawberry dome in the centre of the biscuit

Pipe the elderflower Chantilly between the dome and the edge of the sable, I chose to use a large plain nozzle for this but you could use a closed star or something completely different.

The glaze should have a nice gold sheen to it already, but If you like you can always sprinkle a little more of the edible gold dust on top of the domes to finish.